


Stay and Hear (Your True Love's Coming)

by ninaunn



Series: you i choose above a crown [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Act 3, F/M, Post-Quest, Questioning Beliefs, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 17:24:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1907493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninaunn/pseuds/ninaunn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a victory to be had in the smile that slid across his lips. </p><p>Or, Hawke tries very hard not to let Kirkwall get in the way of her second chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay and Hear (Your True Love's Coming)

\--

“I understand, Fenris,” she told him, not fighting the storm that rumbled in her chest and whisked away her breath, “I _always_ understood.”

There was a victory to be had in the smile that slid across his lips. Fenris leant toward her. 

“If there is a future to be had, I will walk into it gladly by your side.” 

Ah, how his words made Hawke feel as young and untried as a maid! No matter that her heart was close to bursting; it’d been so well guarded these past few years. 

Three of them, in fact. Full of buried hope and bruised longing and here it was ended on the quietest of nights in the softest of moments. 

Certainly it was nothing like the reconciliation she’d thought of, if she’d ever allowed herself to hope for such a thing. Hawke would have put her money on it being a blaze of burning passion and choked emotion. Isabella certainly had, if her friend-fiction was anything to go by. 

Yet not one pick-pocket had bothered Hawke, concern rolling off her like a worried Chantry Mother, on her way to the mansion that evening. The streets of Kirkwall were silent, and the stillness of night had not ended with wine blurring the edges off whatever limbo Hawke and Fenris had fallen into.

She supposed that was why Varric was the story-teller, though not why Kirkwall’s thugs were finally learning the art of self-preservation. Unlikely that such quiet nights would last, but a girl could dream. 

So, a rare uneventful night and a quiet few days after a certain Tevinter magister had been shown which orifice he could stick his slavery up, and Hawke had set foot in a dusty mansion to see how many ghosts Danarius’s death had laid to rest. 

There had not been hide nor hair of Fenris since he’d fretfully asked Hawke to meet his long lost sister. He’d not come to Wicked Grace the night before, nor to his reading lesson earlier that day. Whether or not it was to avoid her or any reminder of Varania’s treachery, the Champion could not say. The Hanged Man had almost as much blood on its floor as the Gallows, though it had never been personal before. Mostly it had been local cut-throats wanting to size up against Hawke and her merry band of misfits, much to Corff’s displeasure. 

Then again, there ought to be some kind of satisfaction from looking at a rust-brown stain on a dirty stairwell with the knowledge that there you’d finally slain the crazed magister intent on recapturing you for his own debauched purposes.

But what did she know? Hawke had never been clever, but she knew enough that to approach Fenris before he’d settled the roiling storm of hate Danarius inspired would wound them both.

Of course, Fenris was also infamous for stewing in his own misery. Even after all the muddle between them, Hawke had learned the knack of dragging him out of his self-loathing, willingly or otherwise. So, she’d readied her patience and schooled her bluntness and prepared for the worst. Predictably, Fenris had been growly like a mabari with meat, but his anger had been reflective and not vicious.

And here they were now. Andraste herself might have returned with heavenly fire for all Hawke cared; Fenris stood above her promising forever and she would deny all of Thedas but that shabby room and stolen mansion if it meant staying by his side. 

Beside them the fired crackled, beating against the empty chill of a dusty building full of shadows. Warm light cast itself onto the angles of Fenris’s cheek-bones; his eyes reflected an unguarded, burning passion that she had not seen since their brief interlude so long ago. 

Her heart had been a battered thing long before Kirkwall; the wounded wariness of an elven ex-slave unused to choice and the freedom to feel had not been the first thing to make it bleed. Maker knew, this bitch of a city had thrown everything it could to make her shatter, but Hawke had always preferred to laugh in the face of adversity.

Three years ago she had almost laughed when he’d slipped so quietly from her room, her bed, to hide in his empty mansion. It had been an ugly laugh, the edges had caught in Hawke’s throat and she’d had to stuff her fingers in her mouth to stop the noise. Cafall, stupidly loyal mabari that he was, had scratched at her door not a moment later. Hawke preferred not to remember her quiet, snotty sobbing muffled by her dog’s smelly coat so as not to wake Oranna, or worse, Mother. It was hardly a glory moment. 

Yet her heart was not fragile, and Hawke had sworn to herself that she’d be damned before losing Fenris to shame and sorrow. There was a thin line between cajoling a cranky Fenris into rescuing _another_ kidnapped mage clueless about the real world, and bullying him into it, but somehow Hawke had managed. 

So what if Fenris could be lured by an offering of wine and Oranna’s pastries? Hawke like to treat her friends. If he blushed when she smiled his way, it was surely at Isabella’s latest lewd innuendo. The tight crease between his brows and the down turn of his mouth when she caught him staring, was there something on her face? There was? Oh good.

Maker knew why it made her chest hurt.

What was a little love sickness anyway? The scion of the Amell’s needed a strong sword at her side, especially since the City Guard had lured Aveline away with a captaincy. If Varric kept them casually updated when slave-hunters set foot in the under-city, it wasn’t at her behest.

That hadn’t stopped her from annihilating them. 

For a while after the messy business with the Qunari, she’d feared that Fenris would leave Kirkwall entirely. Holed up in her bed with her stomach stitched together and barely the strength to stand, Hawke had been unable to provide him with the work she knew supplied the majority of his coin. 

He’d avoided her, leaving it to Varric to say that he’d taken outside work for a merchant’s caravan that would keep him out of Kirkwall for well over a month, and Hawke had braced herself for the hole he’d leave behind. Fenris was a damned fine warrior, it would have been little trouble for him to find someone willing to pay handsomely for his blade. 

And blood-mages ran rife in Kirkwall; who would have blamed an ex-Tevinter slave for quitting the whole damn place? 

“Sure, no one could blame him,” Varric had assured her, when dazed with pain and healing she’d murmured her worry, “but only a fool would expect him to.” 

Blessedly, her favourite dwarf had not noticed the wet sheen in her eyes, or else had the decency not to mention it. 

Bethany had always claimed her sentimental, despite her brashness. Carver had called her sickeningly soppy at the most inconvenient of times, and she’d call him an arse and they’d be done with it. What would the twins have said, to see her stuttering heart and hidden regard? No doubt Carver would have laughed, to see her so forlorn on behalf of an angry elf, but he was dead and Bethany was as good as, and even their memories couldn’t haunt her now. 

Fenris had surprised her. He’d returned from the caravan after a month with nary a word about it otherwise. He’d stayed; he was right in front of her looking like the Maker Himself would have to rip the world asunder to remove him. 

No, she would not laugh now in either sadness or joy, though Hawke’s heart indeed sang. In the corners of her mouth a smile curled to see Fenris not falter at his own desires. Warmth flooded her chest like a storm and hitched her breath like a hurricane and Hawke thought _at last, at last we need not fear cutting ourselves on each other’s barbs._

His gaze had not wavered as he spoke of a future; when she stood to meet him, he did not step back. 

With one hand, Fenris reached out to drag his fingers through her coarse hair; Hawke hummed happily to feel him cradle the back of her skull. Green eyes tracked her lips, and he did not wait long before pulling her in for an eager kiss. 

A small sigh escaped the back of her throat; Hawke leant in and her hands crept up his sides to keep him close. Fenris responded by tightening the arm around her waist and coaxing her mouth to open further with his silky tongue. A fire burned beneath her ribs, a furnace for the blood that made her hot in every place they touched. 

Surely her pulse sang like Chantry bells at a service? She wondered if Fenris could hear the beating of her blood, or whether he was too lost in his own elation. 

For so long Hawk had wrestled with the memory of him, now her fingers clung to the leather of his jerkin like a life line. How often had she fought down the urge to flick that one lock of hair from his eyes? To hug his middle every time a frown creased his lovely brow? 

Yet Hawke knew she could not shield everyone. Her friends were a particularly troublesome lot, though it would be a dark day in Kirkwall when they allowed her to take the fall for them. The business with Isabella and the Qunari had been pure chance, and no one, least of all her elven lover, had taken that well. Kirkwall had taught her that sometimes she was not enough; the Champion’s mantle ran red for those who Hawke had failed to save. 

Carver to the Dark-spawn. Bethany to the Wardens. Seamus to hate. Mother. 

_This is no time for ghosts,_ she reminded herself, _yours or his._

Her teeth scraped his bottom lip, and she felt Fenris shift in surprise before he angled his face forward to deepen their kiss. The sharp tips of his gauntlets grazed her skull, and Hawke drew one hand up to trace his shoulder blade. 

Three years ago, Fenris had fled because the raw and raging emotions that burst forth from their fucking had threatened to break his brittle sense of self. Resignation and hopelessness had etched itself deeply into his being, and Hawke had cursed her foolishness. 

Stupid, brash Dog Lord with no sense, charging in with no forethought. Hadn’t Mother always warned her to be careful? 

How could Hawke demand him to bare something so thinly healed and scarred over? If Fenris had felt less, he might have stayed, but she had seen the naked fear in his eyes. Freedom had come at a price, and the former slave had still been learning what it was to want and hold the consequences in his own hands. Hawke had not blamed him for choosing cold independence over uncertain vulnerability, could not fault survival. 

Still, it had hurt to watch Fenris leave. Even more so to see her crest on his belt and token on his wrist and the fearful guilt that hunched his shoulders. There was no way for Hawke to read his intent and so she waited and tried so hard not to wish for more. A chasm had grown between them, and Hawke had known enough about trauma to not stretch out her fingers for Fenris until he was ready to grab hold. She’d tried not to question why he’d stayed. 

Warm and blushing, Hawke pulled back enough to breathe, and smiled to see that the certainty had not left the deep green of Fenris’s eyes. It made her happy, and a wide smile grew as Hawke rested her forehead against his own. 

Fenris made an enquiring noise at the back of his throat, gently tracing her cheek with spiked knuckle. Hawke shook her head, unable to find words and kissed his nose, which made him chuckle in surprise. She liked the sound of it so much she repeated the action, though Fenris’s second response was more of a hungry growl. Moving his fingers to Hawke’s chin, he traced her lower lip with a thumb followed shortly with his own. 

The softness of it nearly made her weep; Fenris so rarely allowed himself to be gentle. 

“I must confess,” he said, voice rough with an emotion that made Hawke’s skin shiver, “I hardly know how to proceed.” 

“Well, that depends entirely on where you wish to end up,” she responded lightly, for all that her words felt clumsy. 

Fenris paused, tilting his head back to look at her through dark lashes. Though his brow creased, it was contemplative and not troubled. 

This was…a lot for both of them to process. Even through the headiness of their kiss, Hawke was sharp enough to see his concern. It would be easy to get lost in their passion and eagerness to make up for lost time. Andraste’s tits, Hawke wanted to tear off her clothes and his and lick the lines of lyrium down his body until he was shaking with want, and she was fairly certain Fenris felt the same. 

Three years ago passion and rage and worry had thrown them together and both had been fractured by the collision. Hawke didn’t want a rushed fuck; the splintered fragments of maybe and if only that came after weren’t good enough. She wanted Fenris by her side, hand in hand against whatever new horrors Thedas threw at them, and if she had to wait another three years for Fenris to be ready then so be it. 

She was used to waiting. 

Hawke huffed a little, and rested her chin on Fenris’s shoulder. He did not tense, but the line of his shoulders bunched slightly. Closing her eyes, Kirkwall’s Champion eased her embrace into something lighter, arms loosely linked behind his back so as not to cage him. 

A rustle of movement came a moment before she felt Fenris turn his face, cold nose poking her ear. Still, he said nothing, and Hawke squeezed him once to let him know she wouldn’t push him away. 

“We don’t have to rush things,” she told him. “We have all the time in the world.” 

“Tempting fate, aren’t you?” Fenris answered her, relief tinged the amusement that warmed his tone even as he leant into her hug. Hawke turned her head enough that her lips brushed his ear. 

“Fate’s not the one I’m trying to tempt,” she replied coyly, satisfied to feel the shiver that ran down his body. 

“Hawke-“ 

“Settle down, I’m just teasing,” she assured him, kissing the space beneath his ear. Fenris responded with a frustrated groan that Hawke felt rumble through his chest to hers. 

They stood for a moment in silence. For the first time since Ferelden, Hawke felt warm and welcome and at ease. This close, she could hear the air fill her lover’s lungs, every small breath against her skin and gentle rhythm of his heartbeat. Even the smell of his worn leather armour was familiar and soothing. She’d ached for this closeness. 

“I meant it though,” Hawke said at last, holding him tight with a sudden urgency. Kirkwall was her city, but it took and took and took, and she would not let it steal this second chance. “This whole damned place can go to ruin, but I’ll wait for you, Fenris. I’ll be here for you, always. ” 

_You won’t ever be alone,_ she tried to say. 

“I…that is more than I had ever hoped for,” replied Fenris, answering her fierce embrace with one of his own that made her ribs creak. 

_I am yours entirely,_ he sought to respond. 

When he stepped back, Hawke almost hissed in complaint until he raised his hands to her cheeks. The metal of his gauntlets was cold, but Hawke hardly noticed, for Fenris had brought their faces together to rest his forehead on hers. 

“Still, you have a way of attracting trouble,” he continued solemnly, and Hawke smiled at the tickle of his lashes against her skin. “Kirkwall might not be willing to give us such time.” 

“Kirkwall can go hang,” answered Hawke; her smile turning toothy and fierce and she raised her hands to hold his wrists as if to pledge herself again. Fenris, for his part, was acquainted well enough with her stubbornness to only sigh. 

“We both know you’re not the sort to let it.”

Hawke laughed wearily at that, for it was true. For all its wretchedness, she’d marked Kirkwall as her stomping grounds. 

“Not unless I’m the one holding the rope,” she amended, and was rewarded with a look of long suffering. “Hush now, I’m jesting.” 

A short snort or disbelief sounded, and Fenris pressed closer to her, finger-tips twitching at her temples. Releasing his wrists, Hawke reached out with bony fingers to press the corners of his mouth up. 

Fenris scowled and his lovely lips thinned, but he spoke not, and Hawke found herself chuckling when she leant forward to kiss him again. 

“Now you’re just trying to distract me,” he mumbled in between kisses. 

“Well, if you’d only cease frowning,” Hawke replied.

“Not much incentive to stop,” he said into her mouth, before pulling away. “Hawke…”

“Fenris, don’t…” she pleaded.

“You know this city rests on a knife’s edge,” continued Fenris, voice low, gravelly and determined. His hands on her face tightened, and there was something very vulnerable in his eyes. “I won’t lose you to it.” 

“You won’t,” promised Hawke, though the words were strained and breathless. Her eyes burned; she hadn’t wanted the world to encroach on their moment, hadn’t wanted to be reminded of what she could lose. “I thought I told you that already.”

“Yes.” After a moment, he scowled again. “But-“

“Hush,” she interrupted, fingers falling to grip the edge of his breast-plate. “We already covered this, remember? Whatever happens, it’ll be together.” 

With that last word, Hawke shook him for emphasis. He had to know she meant it, had to believe the falter in her voice was strength and emotion and not hesitance.

The weight behind her words must fallen heavily, for Fenris blinked and remained silent. Not that it should have surprised him; Hawke had never committed to anything half-heartedly. Let Fenris know she would move mountains for him. Let him know she would cut down the Archon himself if he dared lay claim. Maker knew they’d already slain High Dragons, demons and worse side by side; what was an empire next to her mabari heart and his lyrium lines? 

But, oh, there was fear. 

How long would it take before some fell thing came to tear them asunder? Meredith tightened her iron grip on the city, and everybody struggled for breath. How could anything end well, when the Knight Commander held compromise as a weakness?

Tired, watchful eyes followed Hawke everywhere. Hope? Fear? It was hard enough to keep her own safe, let alone the entire city. Like Anders, who struggled so desperately between mindless vengeance and a greater purpose that his humanity wore thin, and Merril, whose vision of her people’s past glory blinded her to the thorns at her feet. 

Maker, Danarius had used Fenris’s _sister_ to get back at him. What could Hawke possibly do against such driven malevolence?

There was something sick in Kirkwall that had seeped out from the stone these past three years and it weighed them all down. The nobles milled about like lost sheep and Low-town battened down the hatches awaiting a storm and all left the Under-City to stew in their own mess. And ever did the Gallows loom like a promise.

Order was held by a thread, but with the City Guard stretched thin after the Qunari Invasion, it was only a matter of time before it snapped. Not even Aveline could cuff and lock up fear and paranoia and prejudice. The dead in Kirkwall were not quiet. 

And Hawke was Champion; whatever happened to Kirkwall would happen to her. She’d never feared danger or death, but in here in a moment of hope, she realised how fragile such a thing as the future really was. Fenris watched her, white hair glinted over dark, furrowed brows and something in him went still. Hawke’s worry must have bled through to her expression, because his frown softened and he stroked her cheek. 

“Yes,” he said again, with conviction this time, and his warm hands dropped to her waist. Her heart shuddered and ached. “Yes, we will.” 

“Good,” replied Hawke, and for all her flippancy, emotion choked her tone. “I don’t have time to find another swordsman to guard my flank, after all.” 

And suddenly Fenris’s hands were clutching at her like he was drowning, and her own fingers were digging into the black leather on his shoulders. What future they might have together was fragile, but how desperately Hawke wanted it. Wanted to fight tooth and nail for it until there was nothing left of her but ash and bone. 

“You won’t have to,” Fenris told her fiercely, teeth scraping against her cheek as he buried his face in her neck. “I am yours, Hawke. Always.”

“Always,” Hawke echoed with a sound like a sob. Something like a thorned vine tightened around the Champion’s chest; three years of longing and fear and here he was, holding onto her like a life-line. A tuft of white hair tickled her nose, but she was too busy kissing his jaw, the shell of his ear and wherever else her lips could reach, to notice. 

His fingers pressed into her sides so hard she felt it through her leathers. One of Hawke’s arms snaked over his shoulder to caress the base of his skull. Fenris hissed in response and grappled for her arse to press her hips impossibly closer, dragging a low moan from her throat. There was such an ache within her, and Hawke arched her body into his for some kind of relief.

Teeth scraped at the juncture of her shoulder and neck, and Hawke shuddered and pressed his face further to her skin. Heat flared from deep in her belly as Fenris bit again at her, causing her eyes to flutter shut and her hips to roll against his.

How was it so hard to draw air into her lungs? Her skin felt like it was on fire and Hawke was sure she’d have bruises on her ribs and arse from where Fenris had dug his claws in. The sharp feel of his hungry mouth on her pulse made her gasp. Hawke found herself hoping he’d left a mark. 

“Fenris,” she said breathlessly into his pale hair, to which his body jerked in response. Maker, she’d said they’d take it slow, but the want building up at her core made hard to remember that. Her chin lifted to give the elf the run of her throat; the feel of his teeth and tongue made Hawke’s fingers clench and her toes curl.

With a barely contained whimper, she reached with one hand for the back of his belt. Her body felt taut; entirely focused on the way his pelvis ground against hers. Without thinking, Hawke slid a leg up her lover’s own to bring him closer. Fenris moved with her, running his hand along the underside of her thigh with shaking fingers. Hawke’s grip on his belt tightened, trying to anchor her body to his, while her other hand dragged her nails across his scalp.

In her ear she could hear Fenris breathing sharply through clenched teeth as he nuzzled the tender places he’d bitten. Hawke didn’t know whether to pray or curse that he sounded as wound up as she felt. It would be so easy to get lost in this fierce desire. Her lips pulled back in a silent snarl when Fenris pulled her leg up and sideways in a small motion that slotted his thigh in the perfect position at the apex between her own. She couldn’t help but buck her hips to feel that blessed friction. 

It did not miss her notice that she wasn’t the only one whose genitals enjoyed the motion 

“Venhedis,” Fenris muttered against her shoulder, and his grip on her hips shifted enough to make her groan and wish desperately for the sudden and lasting destruction of both their trousers. The rumble of his tone was broken with lust, frustration and other unnameable things. “How can one woman push so far against what I am able to bear?”

The laugh that came from her was short and raw. 

"Oh, I’ve tried to make an art form of it,” Hawke answered him, voice husky with promise. 

Her lover cursed again, fingers flexing where he held her. On reflex, she rolled her hips again and again to somehow ease the mounting pressure. 

“You’ve succeeded,” he told her with a growl. Hawke voice keened and she nudged at his temple with her nose; the sharp points of his gauntlets burrowed into the soft places around her hips and buttocks. With some kind of monumental act of will, Fenris held her still, even as he mumbled indecipherable blasphemies to her skin. 

Hadn’t she told him that there was no rush? Yet there was a selfish, hungry part of her that hissed that she’d waited long enough. They were both on edge, so wired to the hot sensations of their pressed bodies that it would take very little for either Hawke or Fenris to abandon themselves to desire 

And she wanted it, how Hawke wanted him.

Midst the pounding roar of her heartbeat and the fire in her blood, something like sense was carving its way back into her lust-addled brain. 

_Not a frenzied fuck,_ her mabari-stubborn good intentions interrupted with a pick axe. _You’re playing for keeps, remember?_

It was a fraught moment; her body refused to obey the order to back down because the feeling of being so closely entwined with Fenris was every bit as fiercely good as she’d remembered. 

Scowling at her common sense, Hawke huffed and beat her raging desire back into submission. Slowly, her leg edged down from where he’d hoisted it by his hip. Hawke’s skin screamed at the loss of contact, but she’d waited too long to fuck this up with haste. 

“Andraste’s dirty smalls, Fenris,” swore Hawke, and felt his stuttered laugh against her shoulder. There was a boulder lodged in her throat and she hoped he’d heard how very hard it was for her to swallow. Fenris had yet to relinquish his grip on her, allowing the Champion to feel how his chuckles rumbled through his chest. “And you think I’ll be the death of you?” 

He hummed as he pulled back to look at her, and the smile on the elf’s face made Hawke’s racing heart miss a beat. 

Of course she had to kiss him again, in the face of such a smile. The surprised sound that Fenris made managed to mollify her, and though the passion remained, the heated tension between them bled away to something more comfortable. 

“You are the one who insisted we had the time,” answered Fenris, bumping noses so that she knew he jested. 

That didn’t make it any less vexing. 

“You’re an arse,” she grumbled, stepping back to take stock of his flushed face and mussed hair. There was something entirely enticing about the self-satisfied smirk Fenris wore despite his rumpled appearance, and Hawke scowled to show she was unaffected. 

The damnable man chuckled to show he was not fooled, and ran his hands up her sides and down her arms to clasp her own. Neither could look away. 

“Hawke,” Fenris said softly, and she felt like eternity could leave them happily alone until the end of days. She entangled her fingers with his. “I…you…” 

His voice trailed off, and Hawke thought she could read the line of his words in the bob of his throat and the creases under his eyes. 

“I understand, Fenris.” 

“Hm,” he hummed, shyly glancing at their joined hands before bringing them up to kiss her calloused knuckles. “Stay, won’t you? The night, I mean.” 

“Oh,” her voice and wit failed, and she was almost certain she was blushing. “Yes. Alright, yes.”

Yes, there was a victory in this, and with it, Hawke allowed herself to hope. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to flesh out what happened just after the Questioning Beliefs scene and the sort of emotional hang ups that might cling to Hawke and Fenris after they choose to restart their romance.
> 
> Also I wanted to see if I could actually write romance. 
> 
> Any way, hoped you all like it.
> 
> 14/07: Minor editing on some of my weaker sentence structures.


End file.
